Four officers are detained in Burkina Faso over a failed coup
A day after the military administration declared that a coup attempt had been stopped, Burkina Faso reported on Thursday that four officers had been jailed.
In a statement read by AFP on Thursday, military prosecutor Ahmed Ferdinand Sountoura stated that the four are suspected of being involved in a “conspiracy against state security.”
The statement claims that two further people are “on the run”.
The intelligence and security agencies had thwarted a coup attempt the day before, the junta claimed late on Wednesday.
The military administration promised to explore “all possible light on this plot” in its statement.
It has been almost exactly one year and one day after Captain Ibrahim Traore, the commander of the junta, seized control of the country in West Africa on September 30, 2022.
His revolution was the nation’s second in eight months, spurred in part by resentment over the country’s inability to quell a violent jihadist insurgency that had rushed in from neighboring Mali in 2015.
Anyone having knowledge that can “contribute to the manifestation of the truth to come to testify,” according to the military prosecutor, is encouraged to do so.
Following a demand from Traore’s followers to “defend” him despite coup rumors on social media, thousands of people flocked to the streets of the nation’s capital Ouagadougou late on Tuesday.
On Wednesday, Traore emphasized his “determination to lead the transition safely despite the adversity and different manoeuvres to stop our inexorable march towards assumed sovereignty” on X, formerly known as Twitter.
The print and online operations of the French-language news source Jeune Afrique, which had recently published two articles about tensions inside the military, were suspended in Burkina Faso on Monday.
The news outlet was accused of attempting to “discredit” the military by the government of Burkina Faso.
Military prosecutors claimed there had been an attempt to “destabilize state institutions” soon after Traore’s coup in December 2022.
The nation’s military prosecutor also announced earlier this month that three soldiers had been detained and accused of planning to overthrow the junta.
Investigators were informed that “soldiers and former soldiers working in intelligence” were snooping around the residences and other places frequented by important junta members, including Traore.
It stated that their intention was to “destabilize the transition,” a word used to characterize the military’s interim administration before the scheduled elections.
Islamists swept into Burkina Faso, a poor landlocked nation, from Mali in 2015.
An NGO monitor estimates that around 17,000 civilians, soldiers, and police have perished since then.
One of the largest internal displacement crises in Africa has been brought about by the compulsion of more than two million people to quit their homes.
Roch Marc Christian Kabore was overthrown by a coup on January 24, 2022, which was the result of anger within the military.
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